


Luctor Et Emergo

by whitchry9



Series: Carpe Diem [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Broken Bone, Epilepsy, Gen, Lestrade is just a normal amount of protective, Mycroft is overprotective, Prequel, Seizures, hurt comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-26 19:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/653690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to Carpe Diem. I HIGHLY recommend you read it first. <br/>Sherlock's life before he met John, and before he got Gladstone. Three parter, switching viewpoints.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

Sherlock hadn't always been without warning before a seizure. When he was younger, around the time he was still having anywhere from zero to ten a day, he would be able to tell when they were coming.

Other people, the doctors and his parents included, called it an aura. Sherlock hated that. They should just call it what it was- a simple partial seizure. Thankfully, Mycroft agreed with Sherlock. He was the only one who did. The simple partial seizure was often followed by a complex partial seizure, which was always followed by a tonic-clonic seizure.

Although they were rather annoying, they were useful, allowing Sherlock to find somewhere to lie down instead of just collapsing as the seizure began, often hitting his head on something and sometimes getting cuts that required stitches. He favoured his room; he had a large bed that was soft and safe and private. Sherlock may only have been a young child, but he was rather advanced for his age, as anyone who met him soon learned. He didn't enjoy being gawked at as he flailed and twitched on the floor, contorting into strange positions and making horrifying sounds, occasionally wetting himself.

No, Sherlock could most certainly do without that.

Except Mycroft frowned upon that. Because every time he entered Sherlock's room to find him sleeping off a seizure, or entered while he was in the midst of one because he'd heard the noises, he was absolutely furious. But this was Mycroft Holmes, future British government, and he would not have gotten there if he didn't know how to control his emotions.

So he smoothed down Sherlock's hair and whispered to him as he woke up, exhausted and confused, getting him clean clothes and reassuring him it wasn't his fault, and saved that anger for later when he could properly scold Sherlock for trying to deal with this on his own.

Oh, and he did. Because he quietly raged at Sherlock enough times that he actually listened, letting Mycroft know _before_ he had a seizure, allowing him to come sit with him, just in case. And of course he acted all insulted, like it was an invasion of his privacy, but the Holmes brothers could read each other like books, at least at that time, and Mycroft knew that it was all a show. Because it was always nice to know someone would always be there when you woke up from the nightmare, someone to whisper in your ear that you were safe, and could rest, because they would fight off the monsters.

 

But nothing ever stays the same, and Mycroft grew older and went off to school, leaving Sherlock at home with two parents who didn't get it and a school that was full of cruel and immature children. Because between Sherlock's habit of revealing everything that everyone was hiding and his propensity to fall down with little warning and twitch around on the floor, he was not the most popular person.

So Sherlock mostly hid in the library, reading books, and there was even a beanbag that mysteriously appeared there a few weeks after Sherlock had his first seizure in the library. The librarian, a lovely woman, unable to have children but loved them (explaining why she worked in a school) denied Sherlock's accusations that she brought it in just for him, but they both knew. So Sherlock helped her fix the cataloguing system and suggested books to get, and she made sure he was safe and that no one ever made fun of him in her library.

 

The simple partial seizures were really the only thing that was keeping him from looking entirely stupid, forced to wear a helmet all the time, in case he suddenly fell down, which Sherlock never would have done. He'd rather have been at A&E every other day to get cuts stitched up than have to wear a helmet that essentially labelled him as defective. People figured it out soon enough, there was no need to advertise it.

 

When Sherlock was a teenager, they finally got the right combination of meds that reduced the seizures to once or twice a week, instead of the usual same in a day. Sherlock practically felt free, but his parents didn't see it that way. So Sherlock wrote to Mycroft, begging him to help convince their parents that he could most definitely go out on his own and could learn to drive, because he always had a warning before he seized. But it took Mycroft ages to write back, and when he did, it was stiff and formal, informing Sherlock that their parents were indeed right, that he still couldn't drive and needed to be looked after like a small child.

Sherlock burned the letter as soon as he finished reading it, but there was no burning it out of his mind.

 

So he'd leave the house and do experiments until all hours in the tree house he and Mycroft had built when they were younger, complete with a boardwalk for when Sherlock was still in his pirate phase. He'd stay there for hours, sleeping off the after effects of a night complicated by blurry vision and the scent of coffee, cursing his damn screwed up brain for ruining perfectly good experiments that were time sensitive.

His parents died when he was sixteen, Father rather unexpectedly, which was probably what pushed Mother over the edge, seeing as how she'd been slowly getting there for years now, constantly fighting a war she could never win.

Mycroft was made his legal guardian.

Sherlock counted down the seconds until he turned eighteen, knowing all the while that even that wouldn't get rid of Mycroft. Because his damn big brother was Big Brother, controlling CCTV cameras as a trick on first dates that never progressed to seconds, mysterious black cars pulling up beside Sherlock on the street and whisking him away when Mycroft wanted to speak with him.

But he could try.

And he sure gave it a damn good effort.

 

He went to school for a while, taking chemistry, but soon grew tired of _that_ kind of chemistry and dropped out. He moved onto a different kind of chemistry and six months of his life practically flew by on silver wings until he fell, and fell _hard,_ waking up in a hospital bed with Mycroft glaring at him, going on and on about how he'd been in status for almost fifteen minutes, his heart stopping once and his breathing twice.

 

So Sherlock cleaned up his act, but it sucked and it was hard and most of all it _hurt._ But he did it because he didn't want to risk the brain cells and besides, he found something even more addicting. The Work.

The Work that had started with Carl Powers, the boy who'd been like him, except not, and it had just grown from there, hiding in the back of his mind until it threatened to take over. And while Mycroft didn't approve, he had to admit it was better for Sherlock than drugs or lazing about in a flat all day thinking about them.

So he got himself in with a Detective Inspector Lestrade, a man who'd already known some of his history, being the one who called the ambulance when he overdosed and went into status at the same time, essentially being the one to save him.

But perhaps, in his own little way, he was thanking him.

And Sherlock supposed that Lestrade was not pleased to have a man chasing after criminals, on rooftops and in rather dangerous situations, when he could collapse into a jerking mess at any moment. But there was no stopping him, and he knew that Lestrade figured it was better to at least be somewhat on his trail rather than clueless when Mycroft came knocking, wondering why the hell Sherlock had fallen off a roof.

Sherlock could care less about the danger aspect, because he knew he always had at least 30 seconds, usually closer to five minutes before the full blown seizure began, which was more than enough time to lay down, hopefully somewhere safe.

 

Except until one day it wasn't.

But really, it was hardly his fault, he was dangling off the edge of a second story roof by his fingertips, unable to pull himself up because of the aching in his arms, and oh perhaps that upwards of 200 pound guy who had been dealing drugs laced with toxins all over the city, killing three so far and landing at least eleven more in hospital. That may have been stopping him too. Because when the world blurred in front of his eyes despite all his blinking, and he could smell coffee, even though there was none, he knew he was screwed. Because while he may have had between 30 seconds and five minutes before the full blown seizure started, he had even less than that before the complex partial seizure began, which could be anything from frequent swallowing to muscle weakness. This occasion, of course, being the latter.

Sherlock could feel himself slipping, and really only hoped that he would be seizing before he hit the ground, because he was really not looking forward to that.

He wasn't really sure what happened though.


	2. Falls

Lestrade showed up in time to see Sherlock hit the ground. It was really quite impressive timing.

So he ran over to him and stabilized Sherlock's arm, pinning it between his own arm and leg which minimized that tremors that could extent to the lower arm, which was obviously broken. And the last thing Sherlock needed to do was further displace it, possibly causing it to become an open fracture, which would most definitely require surgery.

So he went with him to the hospital, explained the situation, and was allowed to wait with him between the x-rays and MRI, and even got to watch when they realigned the bones in his arm, Sherlock sleeping through it obliviously thanks to the sedative he'd been given. Lestrade even chose the colour for him, a navy blue to match that mysterious scarf he always wore.

Lestrade was going to stay overnight, stay until they discharged him the next day or the next, except the  arrogant posh man (who'd 'borrowed' him before) showed up, finally introducing himself to Lestrade as Sherlock's brother. He told Lestrade, less than kindly, than while his devotion was appreciated, he should leave now.

And so he did.

He was relieved to find hear that Donovan had managed to catch up with the suspect and caught him, but less that pleased when he called the hospital the next day to hear that Sherlock had sustained a mild head injury and would be staying another night for observation.

Because all Sherlock needed was another blow to the head to help matters.

 

But Sherlock texted him three days later, looking for cases, complimenting him on the colour choice, and saying nothing else.

Lestrade declined, saying he had nothing of interest, which was true. It worked until the next week when Sherlock spontaneously showed up at a scene before Lestrade had even gotten there, leading to glares from Anderson and the utterance of 'Freak' from Donovan upon his arrival. Lestrade hushed them with a glare of his own and allowed Sherlock to examine the body.

There was no warning when Sherlock fell, mid sentence, to the ground, stiffened, and then seized. This was the first time anyone else at the yard besides Lestrade would being seeing it.

Anderson gaped at him, mouth already opening to protest the contamination of the crime scene, but Lestrade fixed him with a glare that could silence almost anyone, except for a Holmes. He knelt down and cushioned Sherlock's head, which thankfully hadn't hit the ground very hard, seeing as it was grassy and had been raining almost steadily for the past two days, making the ground about as hard as mush. He worried about Sherlock's arm, which had since been put into alignment and casted, but was now perhaps being shaken back out of place. So he did the same thing as he did the week before, pinning his upper arm to minimize the damage he could do.

He could feel a dozen sets of eyes on him and Sherlock, and it took all he had not to snap at them. He supposed it was shocking for them; most of them probably hadn't witnessed a seizure before, and certainly not a seizure in a man who'd seemed to be almost inhuman. But there was nothing invincible about a man who was thrashing around in the mud with no control over himself.

“D'you want me to call an ambulance?” one of the younger officers piped up from the back.

Lestrade shook his head. That would be all they needed. Sherlock would probably just be waking up at the time the ambulance arrived and be fighting. No one would win, but some people sure would get bruised. They would just wait it out, like they did every other time.

At least it wasn't a long one, coming in at around the two and a half minute mark before Sherlock stilled. Lestrade took that opportunity to reprimand the rest of his team.

“Get back to work,” he snapped, looking especially hard at Anderson and Donovan, who'd been particularly cruel before this occurred, and he could hardly imagine what would follow.

They obeyed, trudging away to gossip amongst themselves. Lestrade knew that Sherlock would be furious and bitter as soon as he was conscious and aware enough to do so.

There were squishy footsteps behind him, and Lestrade turned to see the young officer who'd been the one to ask about an ambulance.

“Is he alright?” he asked quietly.

Lestrade hesitated, but nodded when he noted Sherlock stirring slightly.

“Is he epileptic?” the young man asked, Lestrade racking his brain to come up with his name. Started with an E... Ethan. Ethan something.

“Yeah. How'd you know?”

“My sister,” he said, kneeling down to help Lestrade prop him up in his lap. His coat was splatted with mud and grass. Lestrade knew he'd be furious about that. “I've seen enough seizures to last a lifetime.”

Lestrade nodded. It was nice to have someone understand.

Sherlock groaned a little, as though he'd figured out what had happened already without even opening his eyes. Lestrade wouldn't have been surprised if he did.

“It's okay Sherlock,” he soothed.

Ethan, Ethan Miller, that was his name, nodded to them and headed off. They both knew Sherlock would not want to see him there when he awoke. People were often disoriented, and Sherlock would often come out fighting. It was the only time he'd ever seen Mycroft with a black eye, as a result of getting too close to Sherlock immediately after a seizure. The corners of his mouth lifted as he remembered, but it was most definitely not a smile, because that would be _wrong._ “Shh...” he hushed him, as though encouraging a baby to sleep. “You had a seizure, but it's okay.”

While Sherlock would not have tolerated such babying talk when he was fully aware, this was the one time Lestrade could get away with stating the obvious without being berated.

Sherlock cracked open his eyes and shifted, not comfortable with being held in Lestrade's arms, despite the lingering weakness of his limbs. He almost did a face plant into the mud, forgetting about his broken arm for a minute, going to put it out to support him, forgetting that it couldn't extend.

He hissed in pain and Lestrade caught him, clutching his arm to his chest.

“Can you walk?” Lestrade asked. “I'll take you home.”

“The... case?” Sherlock mumbled, obviously wanting to continue.

“Solved it,” Lestrade lied. It was close enough to being true. Sherlock had given them enough information that even the mere mortals had enough to work with.

Sherlock blinked at him, like he could tell it was a lie, but he was still a bit out of it, and couldn't do anything.

“Didn't see it,” he muttered.

“What?” Lestrade asked, heaving the detective to his feet, not even bothering to avoid the mud. Sherlock stumbled along with him.

“Didn't see it coming,” he repeated.

Lestrade poured Sherlock into the front seat of his car, taking extra care with his arm and his head, which really didn't need to be damaged even more.

“The seizure?”

Sherlock nodded.

Lestrade paused in his positioning of Sherlock's long limbs. That was not a good thing. The only reason  Lestrade allowed Sherlock to accompany him to crime scenes, begrudgingly, was because he always had a warning before he fell down seizing. This... this was _not_ good. Perhaps so not good that Sherlock wouldn't be able to continue The Work. Which was worse, because The Work was everything, and without it, Sherlock would return to drugs and it would be a downward spiral to a bottomless pit.

And Lestrade couldn't bear to watch that happen, not after pulling him out the first time.

“Oh,” he said finally, leaning over Sherlock to do up his seat belt. Sherlock's eyes were closed, but Lestrade knew he was listening. “Well, something to think about later.”

Sherlock made a humming noise. Lestrade smiled, knowing he couldn't see it, carefully closed the door and climbed in the other side.

He woke Sherlock up when they reached his flat, a slight step up from the last one, but still not somewhere Lestrade would live. He poked Sherlock to get him to stir.

“Come on, I'm not carrying you up the stairs.”

Sherlock sighed exasperatedly, but struggled out of the car, ignoring Lestrade's offer of a hand.

He grimaced as he jostled his arm, which must be hurting after that beating it had taken earlier, only a week after being broken.

He collapsed on the couch in his flat, which was nicer looking than Lestrade would have expected, but still somewhere he felt Sherlock should not be living. And he should most definitely not be sleeping on the couch.

“No, no. Bed. Don't make me carry you,” he warned.

Sherlock groaned, but obeyed, trudging into the tiny bedroom and allowing Lestrade to peel his mud splattered coat off him before curling up.

“D'you want me to stay?” Lestrade asked, which really wasn't the question. The question was did he need to stay.

Sherlock shook his head. “Mycroft'll watch me,” he mumbled into the pillow.

Lestrade looked around, pondering whether or not it was a good thing. He settled on ambiguous and left Sherlock to sleep it off. He's probably show up at Lestrade's office first thing in the morning like nothing happened, demanding to know why they hadn't solved the case and caught a criminal yet.

And despite himself, Lestrade seemed to be smiling at that thought.


	3. Getting to John

Sherlock awoke because of the pain, not because he was well rested. He was still tired to the bone, including the broken one, and just wanted to sleep for another day or so. But that broken bone was rather insistent on hurting, so Sherlock had to crawl out of bed to grab a glass of water and one of the pills he'd been given at the hospital after he came out of his drugged up and post seizure stupor. A double whammy.  He hadn't actually been taking them on a regular basis, his arm didn't really hurt when he was focused on a case, but apparently it was unhappy with the beating it had taken earlier, and to be honest, Sherlock could blame it. He felt it too.

So he swallowed a pill and stumbled back to bed, not even bothering to crawl under the blankets before he fell into a drug induced dream filled sleep, where bodies never disobeyed and brain wires were never crossed.

What a tender world that would be.

 

He ignored Lestrade's attempts to discuss the unexpected nature of the previous seizure, and everyone knew Sherlock could ignore until the universe turned to dust. So Lestrade let it go (thankfully) and Sherlock had almost managed to push it out of his mind until he woke up on the floor of his flat aching, having lost half an hour.

It hadn't been a particularly bad one. He could tell by the level of aching in his muscles, the lack of blood in his mouth from where he could have chewed on his tongue and cheeks, not having choked to death on his own vomit, and his pants still being dry. All promising signs. When he was younger, Sherlock tried to devise a formula to determine the length of a seizure by the length of time he was out of it for, but seizures were too damn unpredictable, and there was no calculation in the world to account for all of the variables.

Still, this one had probably been around the three minute mark.

But what really irked Sherlock was that there had been no warning for this one either. Once was a fluke, but twice was cause for investigation. If it were three, that would make it a pattern.

But Sherlock needn't have worried about waiting for a possible third, because there was an unwanted visitor when he woke up the next morning.

Mycroft was hovering in his doorway, smiling insincerely at him.

“Piss off,” Sherlock told him, trying to roll over, but inhibited by his cast.

“That's no way to greet your brother,” Mycroft scolded.

“Piss off, dear brother,” Sherlock amended through gritted teeth.

Sherlock could practically hear Mycroft smiling. “Hardly better, but it'll do. Get dressed,” he ordered, throwing clothes on to the bed next to Sherlock. “We're going to see your neurologist.”

Sherlock groaned into the pillow, but knew it was no use. If he didn't go now willingly, Mycroft would wait until he had his next seizure to scoop him up while he lay unconscious on the floor. Might as well go now to guarantee ending up there with dry pants and no drool on his face.

“Get out,” he ordered, half sliding half falling out of bed, grabbing the pile of clothes Mycroft had tossed to him.

They were the typical 'oh let's go for a day of testing at the doctor' clothes. The shirt was buttoned for east access to his chest and there was no metal in any of the items in case he went for an MRI.

Mycroft smirked at him and closed the door. Sherlock shoved the clothes on, scowling when he realized the left sleeve had already been adjusted so his cast could fit through. And he'd _so_ looked forward to ripping it. Stupid Mycroft.

Sherlock left the bedroom, entirely ignoring Mycroft hovering outside the door and headed for the tiny kitchen, swallowing his meds and one of the pain pills. If he was going to go for this, he sure wasn't going to suffer through it. Then he followed Mycroft to the waiting black car.

 

A day of testing led to a conclusion Sherlock already knew. He was forced to endure multiple blood tests, an EEG, an MRI, and an induced seizure only to be told that the head injury he'd endured two weeks ago, the same time he'd broken his arm, had done something in his brain that prevented him from having the simple partial and the complex partial seizures. He'd been cured. Of course, that just made the entire damn thing that much worse. No warning. No hint of when he'd fall down and flail like a dying fish. Nothing.

Basically, he was screwed.

But he refused to wear that bloody thing Mycroft got him, dodged his tails whenever he could, just for the hell of it, and removed all the cameras from his flat, even though he knew more would take their place. Because damn his brother, Sherlock was going to live his life as he saw fit, and that did not include living in a bubble.

But he moved into another flat, one with reduced rent, because Mrs Hudson, the landlady, had required his services a number of years ago. Plus she was delightful, despite protesting she wasn't his housekeeper, often making him food and cleaning up the place.

But she insisted that Sherlock get a flatmate, because there was that whole bedroom upstairs and didn't he get lonely there on his own? She was firm on that matter, and threatened to kick him out if he didn't, and Sherlock would have suspected that Mycroft had something to do with it except Mrs Hudson would _never._

So Sherlock looked for someone who wasn't entirely dull, and found someone, except he left after the first seizure he witnessed (which Sherlock had to admit, had been a rather bad one) so Sherlock had deleted everything about him from his memory except for a vague recollection of the going ons. He'd almost given up hope on finding a flatmate, dooming himself to a life of living in rundown flats next to drug dealers and fighting couples.

 

And then came John, who was even a doctor and actually didn't mind Sherlock, perhaps even admired him a later, and dare he say it _liked him_ , and Sherlock waited for the day when he'd fall down during an experiment, or a chase, or at a crime scene, and John would see how much of a freak he really was, even though he never said it out loud. And then John would leave, because even Sherlock wouldn't want to be stuck with someone as brilliant as him if he was broken.

 

But by some stroke of luck, or at the hand of some deity he didn't believe in, Sherlock never had a seizure in front of John.

And he planned to keep it that way, for ever and ever, which was what he tried to keep telling himself as he brought Gladstone home that day. Because she wasn't a pet, wasn't a companion, just... a tool.

(Looking back, they would both laugh at his stupidity.)

 _Just a tool_ , he told himself as he scratched her velvety ears and she sighed in contentment.

Right.

**Author's Note:**

> Luctor Et Emergo is Latin for 'I stuggle, but I'll survive' or 'I struggle but emerge'.


End file.
